A hard day

Today was quite exhausting and I feel a bit like a hamster running around in my wheel. Mr. Pete informed me last night that I would have to take Calvin to school today at 8:30, which would have been fine except I had to run two of my other boys across town for their piano lessons by 9:15 a.m. Of course the little ones had to come along for the ride.

So by 6:30 I was up working, by 8:00 I was in the shower, and by 8:15 we were on the road. Calvn dropped off, on time for piano, time for a brief stop at home before it was time to pick up Calvin again and being a Holy Day, I decided to hit the down town mass at noon so that the kids wouldn’t miss swim practice tonight!

So, we’re sitting in this beautiful old fashioned, downtown church. I’m saying my rosary, Izzy is playing with hers, two boys in the bathroom and my teenager who will sit behind me but not “with me” in church. And who should walk in but the President of the School Board! Not only did she walk in but it was clear she was going to be some type of minister (lector? EM?) during the mass. I had sort of a visceral reaction!! I was truly surprised to see that she was a Catholic.

Part of me wanted to scream at her, but most of all I didn’t want to appear to have any type of reaction at all. Turns out she was the lector, which was fine. I put Izzy on my lap and closed my eyes and just listened as best I could to her soft voice read about the fall of Adam and Eve. I wondered if she was surprised to see me? I wondered what she thought of seeing Calvin, the young man she had helped deny just a simple thing – just to participate on a school team. Secretely I was hoping she was counting my kidlets and figuring out how much state aid she was going to lose if I kept all of mine out of her public school system. I wonder if I have to confess that?

After mass we were home for a couple of hours, and then at 3:00 I had to take Calvin to get his picture taken at WalMart. It seems that my man child’s has a female admirer who had sent him her school picture and he wanted to reciprocrate. Well, I really am not as diligent with the formal photos as I use to be when he was little, and I hadn’t had a picture taken of him for about a year, so we went, and 1 1/2 later, I was back home, ready for a shortened version of a nap that I desparately needed. I woke with a start just in time to get everyone in the car and over to the pool.

Of course when I woke up no one had their suit on, no one had their shoes on, they all looked in total and utter surprise that it was time for practice as if none of them knew how to tell time or what relationship the sun setting in the sky had on their schedule. It took 5 minutes of none stop screaming for me to get them ready and in the van, from the time I woke up until it was time to go. Once we were on the way Calvin said, “Why are you so cranky when you’re pregnant.”

“She’s not cranky, ” said Gabe, “she just senses happiness and snuffs it out.”

Maybe in 20 years they’ll appreciate me…

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